AT HOME WITH VALERIE HART

Cookbook Author, Food Critic/Reviewer, TV Host of Back of the House

We settled in  her spacious sun porch for a conversation that included a lot of laughing and discovery.  Valerie was born in Michigan into a family of privilege.  “I’m the first female cook (chef) in the family,” she said.    “We had a wonderful German cook when I was a child.  She would sit me up on the counter so I could watch what she was doing.”  The cook never learned English and Valerie didn’t speak German but, “I watched and learned,” Valerie shared.  She loved the warmth, the smells, and the happy and loving times in the kitchen of her childhood.

Valerie was soon off to the University of Michigan majoring in English after graduating from an all girl’s high school.  She loved her summer at Harvard and then found herself in Paris.  “It was a sense of excitement that had me boldly go through the doors of the Paris Grand Opera when I saw a sign in front announcing auditions,” Valerie reminisced.  “I was only 19 years old.  I got up on the stage and froze.  Nothing came out of my mouth.  I was so embarrassed.  A voice came through the auditorium from the back row.  It was Andre Boge himself.  He shouted, ‘sing the Star Spangled Banner’.  I did and when I left the stage and went out the door I was given a slip.  When I got back to the apartment I left the slip on the hall table having not read it.”  The aunt she was staying with asked her about the slip and when she looked at the piece of paper it said report on Monday.  She sang in the chorus as well as studied there for about a year but knew she lacked the discipline and focus to really pursue a career in opera.  “My family really thought it was very bad for a woman to have a career on the stage,” Valerie said.  “They were very old school.”

She met her husband on a blind date in Miami a few years later.  Together they started an Italian furniture import business and Valerie would cook for the designers and clients.  “I wanted to go to the Cordon Bleu Cooking School in London and they wouldn’t take you unless you had a restaurant so I told them I owned one,” she laughed. 

She published her first cookbook, The New Tradition Cookbook, in 1988 and in the early ’90’s edited several Restaurant, Hotel and Spa Surveys for Zagat.  “And I did this all without a computer,” she said.  The list of articles she has written and cooking classes she has taught are numerous. Her most recent cookbook is The Bounty of Central Florida, 300 recipes that can be made with the food grown and found right here in Central Florida; kumquats, citrus, shrimp, pecans, strawberries among many others.

In Lake county she hosts, The Back of the House, a television show on Comcast Cable where she goes to Lake County restaurants, talks with the owner/chef and has them prepare their signature dish.  “I love finding out about these people,” she said.  “I interviewed a family, not too long ago.  The mom home school’s her two children and then they become the wait staff when the restaurant opens.  Really wonderful people.”

“We moved to Central Florida about 15 years ago,” she shared.  “Some friends of ours wanted to buy a house in Winter Park so we came up from Miami with them to explore the area.  We didn’t like Winter Park and so someone suggested Mount Dora.  None of us had never heard of it.”  They began looking at houses and found they loved the area.  “By two in the afternoon we signed papers for this house and went back to Miami.  Shortly after that, when we were being evacuated from Miami because of Hurricane Andrew, we thought we’ll go up to Mount Dora.  The only problem was we couldn’t find the house,” she laughed.  “Of course, we did findf it and love it here.”

Valerie has three children and four grandchildren.  Her oldest daughter is a dietician and cook.

As Valerie stands in her custom kitchen, the stove is very low because she is probably only about five feet tall, she said, “Families cooking together is quality time.  The children can do simple tasks like tossing the salad and washing vegetables.  There is time for true creativity.  There is a lot of love and fellowship in a kitchen.”

Editors note:  Valerie will be the guest speaker at the Girlfriends Club’s first meeting October 20.  And please find Valerie’s recipe for Grilled Shrimp & Hot Sausage Kebabs on page four.